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How the US Treasury Secretary convinced Trump to back down on tariffs and then defends the boss: It was all planned 

2025-04-10 21:26:06Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
How the US Treasury Secretary convinced Trump to back down on tariffs and then
Scott Bessent and Trump

Many on Wall Street had hoped that Scott Bessent would be the “voice of reason” in the Trump administration. Of course, the US Treasury Secretary rejects that label. He told reporters that the plan for a 90-day pause in reciprocal tariffs was Trump’s idea from the beginning and that it is “the art of doing business.”

A South Carolina-born billionaire of French Huguenot descent, founder of the Key Square investment fund, and openly gay, Bessent was from 1991 to 2015 (in a brief interval) the right-hand man of George Soros, the most hated Democratic financier on the right.

He was seen as a pragmatic and reassuring choice for Treasury by both Wall Street and the Washington political class (he is also liked by Steve Bannon). Another billionaire friend of Trump, Howard Lutnick, who aimed for the same post but became Commerce Secretary, thinks otherwise. Bessent is an expert on financial turmoil. His hedge fund bet (and was right) in 2022 that U.S. inflation would last longer than expected.

As for tariffs, Bessent embraced Trump’s argument that they were needed to rebalance the trade balance, but suggested an incremental approach, starting at 2.5% on the 19 countries with the worst trade surpluses, with the same percentage increasing each month to a maximum of 20% (as Trump had promised during his election campaign). That, he said, would give foreign countries time to adjust the tariffs in negotiations with the US administration. But Trump wanted much more than 2.5%. The Treasury Secretary appeared to have lost that battle.

On April 2, however, there were not only staunch supporters of the tariffs in the Rose Garden. Howard Lutnick handed Trump the spreadsheet with the numbers, and trade adviser Peter Navarro explained the data to reporters. Bessent, on the other hand, gave interviews to CNN and Bloomberg News in which, diplomatically, he advised countries not to respond with counter-tariffs. To those who asked him whether the tariffs were permanent, he replied: “We’ll see what happens and what the president thinks.”

With stock markets plummeting and criticism mounting (even from Trump supporters), Republican Senator Ted Cruz suggested that there were “angels and devils” whispering in the president’s ear (the devils being those who want “high tariffs forever”). Last Sunday, two days after the tariffs went into effect, Bessent went to speak with Trump at Mar-a-Lago and returned with him to Washington. On Monday, Bessent himself announced on social media that he, along with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, had taken the lead in tariff negotiations.

“Bessent and Greer are better qualified to negotiate without getting angry. They are like the best police officers to manage traffic towards reducing tensions and towards meaningful results,” a White House source told the Financial Times. The “good cop” suggested on Tuesday that talks with Japan and South Korea would quickly lead to a deal that would ease tariffs, bypassing, for now, the hard line of Lutnick and Navarro.

Bessent was expected in Congress yesterday morning for a hearing, but he sent his deputy explaining that he had been summoned by Trump. The Treasury Secretary was in the Oval Office when the President announced (via social media) the 90-day pause and was the one who explained the decision to reporters. Lutnick, however, wrote on social media that he was there too and, according to sources, this time he too was on the same side as Bessent. /Corriere della Sera


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